![]() ![]() ![]() This meant, however, that she was her mother Muriel's least favorite, a wounding status. Her novels would all be about "menaces." (Amusingly, decades later, upon meeting Prince Philip, she described him to a friend as "a menace," although, she added, he wasn't her type.)ĭaphne was pretty, very beady, and her father's acknowledged favorite. Daphne du Maurier, the second of the sisters, used it that way all her life. It also could be used as a verb as a stand-in for "attracted": "I was menaced." "I wasn't menaced." The word combined attraction with fear, frisson with suspense. Their mother Muriel, who'd been an actress too, was devoted to him, and long after her retirement continued to put her acting skills to use by pretending not to notice the mistresses.Īnother word the girls used among themselves was "a menace." This meant someone attractive. ![]() In the family universe, Gerald stood at the center. With time the girls learned to sort which visitors to their home were there to flatter their father, which also to borrow money from him, and which to sleep with him. Their father, Gerald du Maurier, was a famous London stage actor, with a flock of hangers-on and mistresses. All three girls grew up "beady" themselves. Something "wain" was embarrassing, a "crumb" was a boast, a "tell him" was to be boring, to "nim" was to pee. As kids, the three du Maurier sisters-Angela, Daphne and Jeanne-had a code. ![]()
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